I’m Back!

Date: March 9, 2013

Author: astottler

I’m finally ready to re-enter the blogging world! These past 2 weeks have been pretty rough, so I’ll give you an update on what is going on with me. I have Mono…and according to my blood tests,a pretty bad case of it. Since my spleen and liver are swollen, my stomach is super puffed up and I secretly believe an alien is growing inside of me. The thing is, it’s not just Mono. I tested positive for Strep throat a week ago, but that should be over now with antibiotics. But then somehow I managed to pick up a cold too. Which turned into an ear and sinus infection, which is why after 2 weeks I wasn’t feeling any better. I am convinced that I picked up the strep and cold at the ER. It was disgustingly unsanitary. I am finally on different antibiotics for the ear and sinus infections, and I am starting to feel better, although I am still partially deaf in my left ear. The biggest problem now is I have had a killer sore throat for the past week. Fortunately, I finally got prescribed with a steroid yesterday that brings the swelling in my body in general and my throat down, and I think the pain is improving.

I have basically been in bed for 2 weeks straight, though the last couple of days have been better. I have to take Advil and Tylenol around the clock because otherwise I feel like I am being strangled…and my temperature goes up. The good news is with my new antibiotic, I feel way stronger. I recently realized that I have been taking 28 pills a day. Although that was before the steroid (though I am trying to cut the Advil and Tylenol some). That is crazy. 2 years ago, I couldn’t swallow any pills at all. Embarrassing, I know! It was a huge problem, and I had the hugest fear. Well guess that is gone now, especially since my new antibiotics are giant!

I have been living at home these past 2 weeks as well. For a long time I literally could not get out of bed in the morning, and I doubt my roommate would have wanted to do EVERYTHING for me! Luckily I’m local to school. I had to drop half of my classes though, and will have to retake them next quarter. It is all I can do to keep up with my couple of classes now! My days consist mostly of watching Friends!

I haven’t blogged because my food choices haven’t been too interesting. With a swollen stomach comes a small appetite. And for a while no food at all appealed to me, so I couldn’t even think about food. Exciting news though! We got a new blender! A Vitamix. It’s amazing. And smoothies have been a top choice lately given my throat and my earlier lack of appetite. For a while nothing sweet appealed to me. Yeah I seem to have gotten over that. Frozen yogurt has been a big part of my life lately (yesterday I tried salted caramel pretzel….BEST. THING. EVER.). One night my dad ran out and got me a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. SO GOOD. Sweets do tend to send me into coughing fits though… Eh. One thing that didn’t appeal to me that I haven’t forcibly reintroduced is nuts/nut butter. And guess what? My skin is better than ever! Silver lining right?? I don’t have any food pictures. Well, except this sequence.

That was my turkey and avocado sandwich. Charlie is crazy about meat. And, oddly, bread. I stood no chance.

This morning for breakfast, I was feeling much better and wanted to go out for pancakes. I ordered Blueberry wheat germ, which were pretty good but the wheat germ was a little bitter. My pea sized stomach stood no chance for the giant stack though! Now that I am eating more though, I think I need to go back to worrying about my sugar intake. Especially if I plan on developing a frozen yogurt habit (hey, there are still HOW MANY nearby places I still have to try??). I’m thinking I need to limit my sweets to frozen yogurt…I guess part of the problem is that fruit is a little hard on my throat (it is pretty acidic). Ah well. I guess I just need more smoothies! Now while I don’t have a lot in the way of food pictures, I do have cat pictures (benefit #1 of being home).

Just look at that face!

DEFINITELY not about to fall off or anything!

Who really needs to fold laundry? Or have non-furry towels?

I’m so glad to be back blogging! Unfortunately it will be a while on the workouts…I think the first things I’ll be allowed to do are spinning and running. No weights, and probably no erging, until my spleen has no possibility of rupturing….but hey, now I know where my spleen is! Going back to crew is going to be so difficult…Seeing the erg workouts they are doing just seems impossible. I guess I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it!

How’s everyone doing?

Quick Update

Date: February 27, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Just a quick update on how I am doing…not too well. As it turns out, I have Strep Throat and Mono. And Mono means I will be feeling pretty terrible for about 4 weeks….so now I’m scrambling to try to drop some of my classes because there’s no way I can keep up if I’ve barely gotten out of bed this past week. I am so grateful I live close to home and can just stay there, because I can’t get out of bed in the morning without Advil, which I can’t take without eating….yeah. No food pictures because I’ve been eating the smallest amounts of the blandest foods imaginable. I am on Antibiotics for Strep and they definitely mess with your stomach….I’m hoping that when the Strep is gone I’ll feel a lot better. It’s sad. I haven’t even been able to read food blogs lately! I can’t even think about food. So it will most likely be a little while until I post again because unless you guys want to see pictures of dry toast….This little guy has been with me a lot though! Especially when I am with said toast. He has this weird thing for bread. So you can imagine the pandemonium when last night I was eating a turkey sandwich in bed…

Hopefully everyone has a great day! Stay healthy!

What do you eat when you’re sick? Have you ever had Mono?

Chugging Along

Date: February 25, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Not a lot to share with you guys today….I’m still sick. I keep getting better….but then my temperature climbs right back up. I feel like some sort of mutant…I am on like 4 different things right now to treat my symptoms (so I actually feel ok right now…while all 4 are working!). I’ve gotten some new symptoms, so I wanted to get some tests done yesterday to figure it all out. I was a little concerned it is mono, but the doctors really don’t think so. Either way, I finally convinced them to at least test me for that. But first, let me back up a little. The evening started by calling Urgent Care to see if they would be able to do these types of tests that night, and they said yes. After going in and waiting, and finally meeting with a nurse, they said they didn’t have the resources tonight to do it, so they sent me BACK to the ER. It was way more crowded this time, and I felt a lot worse (pounding headache mainly). I waited in the Pediatric waiting room because the wait was supposedly shorter. This was a very unpleasant experience. There were 2 kids SCREAMING (they were older brothers of some other kid who was sick) and there was one little boy who had just been throwing up all over himself/his dad who walked over and stole a little girl’s Cheetos right out of her hand. In summary, I was there for 4 or 5 hours (can’t even remember at this point), and basically had to beg for any type of test at all. Even worse, there was supposed to be a specialist to draw my blood but she never showed up, so finally a nurse just did it…let’s just say my arm is slightly mutilated….

I don’t have a ton of food pictures. My stomach has been feeling kind of off. I just had some scrambled eggs for dinner, but I didn’t want anything else because I couldn’t stop coughing.

I slept pretty late this morning, which was kind of a problem because it meant my fever did nothing but climb the longer I stayed in bed…and I couldn’t take anything before I ate, but I didn’t feel like getting up at all. I ended up with a cherry and mango smoothie. Lunch was saltines, plus apple juice and fizzy water (trying to rehydrate myself). Later on I had a breakfast burrito. Dinner has a picture though. Vegetable soup plus Gluten-free biscuits!I honestly haven’t done much at all today but lay in bed. I seriously don’t know how I am going to keep up with my schoolwork when I feel terrible most of the time. I can’t remember the last time I was this sick!

At least my kitties spent some time with me today! As it turned out, all I had to do was move the cat climber in my room next to the window….Silly cat!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Turning a Corner

Date: February 23, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Guess what? Still sick :/ But I think I’m finally getting better (knock on wood). What have I been doing the last 2 days? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Thursday night was interesting. My fever climbed above 103 so I went in to Urgent Care, who sent me to the ER because they were closing. After waiting for 3 hours, they told me it was probably the flu because I had no other symptoms. I felt dumb sitting in the waiting room. After taking Advil and Tylenol, my fever was gone and I felt perfectly normal. I felt like I was the healthiest person there! I felt rally bad for some of the parents in the waiting room dealing with their really sick little kids. That would be so difficult! After the lack-luster diagnosis, I told my mom that I wanted something delicious. We could only find one place open, and it just happens to be the one place with the best cinnamon rolls in the world, Peninsula Creamery in Palo Alto. Unfortunately, a picture didn’t occur to me. But trust me when I say it was amazing! They have the most amazing looking desserts, especially the pies! I Kind of wish I had gotten something chocolatey but I’m not complaining! I live fairly close to school, so I just spent the night at home. I’m actually going to spend all weekend home. I figure if I’m lying around doing nothing, I might as well be lying around doing nothing with furry animals. Friday was back to a more strict Paleo routine. After my late-night cinnamon roll, I wasn’t that hungry so I made a green smoothie for breakfast. Cherries and spinach again! Plus some blueberries. After breakfast I went to my 2 Friday classes because I really couldn’t afford to get behind. Plus, when I’m on Advil/Tylenol I feel perfectly fine and normal.

It was parents’ weekend at school, so campus was swarming with parents. My parents went to a few events before being introduced to the wonders of dining hall food (yes, it looks all new and exciting the first time, but every meal??).

Italian salad, tilapia, and butternut squash (ok, they do step it up a little for parents’ weekend).

After lunch I was back to resting. Dinner was simple: breakfast!

A smoothie with frozen banana, mango, strawberries, cherries, and almond milk. A little potato, and a Greek salad my mom whipped up for me with leftover ingredients. Bonus: I had extra smoothie leftover!Plus chicken apple sausage!

So last night, a couple of spots near by eyes swelled up a little, but it went away with Tylenol. It was weird, one spot next to my eye, and one spot on my lower eyelid. It freaked me out a little at first! I also realized that my lymph nodes were swollen. I thought that my chin looked bigger, and I figure I had just gained a lot of weight since I haven’t been exercising, but then I figured out what it really was!

I’ve definitely been enjoying dark chocolate lately. It has so little sugar that I figure it is ok. Plus, it really is hard to eat a lot of it (especially considering I’m eating, 85, 90, 99% chocolate) and I never really want something THAT sweet. Which brings me perfectly to the next topic. What would Hunter Pence do?

As you may know, I’m a huge baseball fan. A huge Giants fan specifically. My mom recently sent me this video about one of the Giant’s players, Hunter Pence. He fairly recently adopted the Paleo diet, and feels great! One concern I always have is whether the eating style is ok for an athlete, but if he can do it, then I can! And he includes some dark chocolate. So when I’m trying to decide if something is ok, I’m going to ask myself, what would Hunter Pence do?

Also, I have a quick question for all of you. Thursday night when I was picking up Tylenol at the grocery, I bought some coconut butter. I didn’t think anything of it until my mom asked what the difference was between coconut butter and coconut oil. I was confused at first, because I guess I always just assumed they were the same, though I suppose this makes a little bit more sense in terms of some of the blog posts I’ve read…So what is the difference? Help me out here!

This morning’s breakfast was leftover smoothie, plus an egg scramble. It is based on Tina‘s Sweet Breakfast Scramble, but I added pumpkin pie spice, and pumpkin instead of squash (leftover from the pumpkin bread I made last week). It was so, so good! And I didn’t even need nut butter (yes, my skin is seriously hating me right now).I also tried a new type of coconut water that a lady recommended to my mom at the store. It was actual chunks of coconut in it! It was really good! Way fresher and more coconutty!

Ok, one more meal to catch up on! Lunch was a simple salad (my patented salad). Lettuce, apple, craisins, candied pecans, rotisserie chicken, avocado, and Italian dressing. SO GOOD.

Plus some baked barbecue chips and dark chocolate!

Ok, one more topic before I go do work (yayy). My hitting coach for softball always told me: “You’re a perfectionist. Never drink alcohol or you will be an alcoholic.” I never exactly got the connection…but he was totally right (NOT that I’m saying I’m an alcoholic!). I’m definitely a sugar addict. Plain and simple. My dad finally recognized this for the first time. And see, the tough thing about this is that there is sugar around me everywhere. There are sweet/dessert options available and displayed EVERY MEAL. My dad compared me to an alcoholic who constantly is in bars. Thanks dad, that gives me tons of hope for recovery! I’ll end with that today!

Any tips for sugar addicts? What is teh difference between coconut butter and oil?

Dilly Dally Day

Date: February 21, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Well guys, I’m still sick. I actually had a pretty high fever last night and decided that even if I didn’t have a fever this morning, the workout was not happening. But I still set my alarm and called my coach in the morning. I had a slight fever when I woke up but unfortunately it went back up. Also, when I woke up at 5:45 to call my coach, I was freezing because I was absolutely drenched in sweat. I had to change my PJs, and my bed was soaking. Ew. That’s probably TMI. I don’t even recall being THAT sweaty…though I felt like I was sweating all morning! I had a class cancelled today, so I decided to skip my other section and just stay in all day in an effort to be better tomorrow. So basically I’ve watched Glee and read blogs all morning. Awesome. The thing is, I don’t feel THAT bad. I just have a high temperature. Though to be fair, right now I’m just coming off of advil. My temp is up, but I feel ok. The temperature seems to rise before my body reacts. But hey, I get to update you on my eats! Breakfast this morning:

(sorry for the shadow) Chocolate protein smoothie with frozen banana (yes, I took the time to peel it this time), soymilk, cocoa powder, and chocolate protein powder. Breakfast has been getting more creative lately though. There was cuban beans and steak today! I went with some beans and a scoop of pre-made egg scramble. Plus some frozen berries. I was then craving a waffle. Again. (Still am). But I didn’t have one. I decided to try a little experiment. I had a slice of Gluten-free toast with peanut butter. I felt fine after. So I guess it really is the Gluten, not just grains in general. After breakfast I watched Glee and sweated. I also drank some Coconut water. Hydration can’t hurt, and since it’s pineapple coconut water, it has tons of Vitamin C!

For lunch, I really wanted frozen yogurt but didn’t want to trek over to the froyo place alone. Maybe dinner! Instead, I went to the dining hall. Chicken, jasmine rice, veggies, and totally delicious cinnamon-maple something butternut squash. SO GOOD. I also had some froyo at the dining hall (which wasn’t exactly fully frozen) with a couple of ill-planned cookie. Stupid gluten. But I’m sick! I can’t be bothered with will power! <- bad thought process.

After lunch I read food blogs. And seeing as it’s only 3:30….I’ve been reading more and more about Paleo and I’m becoming so convinced that it is the solution for me. If only I could stick to it! It was definitely easier getting started at home! I also checked out Whole30, and it’s totally something I’d consider this doing this summer, but there’s no way I’d be able to do it at school with limited food choices and in the middle of season.

I recently made myself a snack, as I was craving more sweets (this is what I get for falling off the Paleo wagon). I vaguely remembered finding a recipe somewhere that made cookies with just peanut butter, honey, and eggs, so I decided to try my hand at a microwave variety. It was delicious! When I figure out the recipe I will post it. I mixed peanut butter and honey and melted them together. Then, I whisked in some almond meal, vanilla, and egg white. 30 seconds in the microwave and I had a delicious treat!

Ok, so it’s not the prettiest thing. And I made it in a paper cup, so who knows how this would have come out on a plate. I ate it with a fork. SO GOOD. But then, it occurred to me…how would a chocolate version be? Naturally I had to test it out. Same method as above, but with almond butter instead of pb, and added cocoa powder. Not bad, but I didn’t like it as much as the pb one.

This is actually a terrible picture. Sorry! It’s probably not good that I now have the ability to make delicious things right at my fingertips. There’s a reason I don’t keep sweets in my room! And all the nuts I’ve been eating lately….let’s just say my face isn’t too happy!

But don’t worry, I got some veggies in! Guac and carrots!

I couldn’t snag any salsa last weekend, but I went home and my mom got me guacamole mix! Perfect! I’m now pretty full though…A light dinner is definitely in order!

I really do hope I’m better tomorrow. I haven’t been this sick in a long time. I haven’t had a fever in 3 years, and I’m sure it wasn’t this high! What is going on with my body? WHY AM I NOT BETTER YET?

Any Netflix suggestions?